The purpose of the Session Long Project is to evaluate quality for managed care organizations and hospitals. The following resource should help you when accessing quality report cards.
Health and Human Services Website: http://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html Explain how Health and Human Services formulates its quality ratings for hospitals. Consider at least one advantage and one disadvantage of this published information. USE THESE REFERENCES: http://www.medicare.gov/hospitalcompare/search.html Grembowski, D., Paschane, D., Diehr, P., Katon, W., Martin, D., & Patrick, D. L. (2007). Managed care and patient ratings of the quality of specialty care among patients with pain or depressive symptoms. BMC Health Services Research, 7(1), 22-22. doi:10.1186/1472-6963-7-22 Mukamel, D. B., Mushlin, A. I., Weimer, D., Zwanziger, J., Parker, T., & Indridason, I. (2000). Do quality report cards play a role in HMOs' contracting practices? evidence from new york state. Health Services Research, 35(1 Pt 2), 319-332. Mukamel, D. B., Weimer, D. L., Spector, W. D., Ladd, H., & Zinn, J. S. (2008). Publication of quality report cards and trends in reported quality measures in nursing homes. Health Services Research, 43(4), 1244-1262. doi:10.1111/j.1475-6773.2007.00829.x Health and Human Services publicize health care quality for every hospital through a star rating system. The purpose of making the information publicly available is helping care consumers and providers in making the proper decision in regard to quality care. By observing the hospital rating for hospitals, a consumer can select the hospital with quality care. Similar, hospitals can improve their care for higher ratings. This essay discusses how HHS formulates the quality ratings for the hospitals and the use of the ratings in managed care organizations. The essay concludes that the information is useful in selecting quality care. Health and Human Services through Hospital Compare use a certain methodology in formulating the quality ratings for hospitals. The hospital rating summarizes up to 57 quality measures. The measures are across 7 quality areas summarized into a single rating for every hospital. When a reporting threshold is identified, an overall rating for a given hospital is calculated through the use of measures whose data is available. The measures can be as few as 9 or as many as 57 (Medicare.gov, 2015).
